Bridge Street not in project

THE de­ci­sion not to in­clude Bridge Street in the new Clan­bras­sil Street and St. Ni­cholas Quar­ter Re­ju­ve­na­tion Scheme was crit­i­cised at the Novem­ber meet­ing of the Dun­dalk Mu­nic­i­pal District Com­mit­tee.

A pre­sen­ta­tion to mem­bers by ar­chi­tect’s BDP, saw trans­for­ma­tive plans un­veiled for Clan­bras­sil Street and Church Street.

But coun­cil­lors heard that the plans do not ex­tend to St. Ni­cholas church, as not enough funds are avail­able to in­clude it in the am­bi­tious re­ju­ve­na­tion scheme.

Gareth Maguire, Ar­chi­tect Di­rec­tor at BDP, said that the plans were to ‘con­tinue with the qual­ity achieved in Mar­ket Square’ adding ‘ We want to cre­ate a plat­form for a town­scape that im­proves over time.’

He said plans were still in the con­sul­ta­tion phase, but that the project would not in­volve pedes­tri­an­i­sa­tion of Clan­bras­sil Street as ‘ the town is sim­ply too small for that.’

In­stead, there were pro­pos­als to widen the pave­ment ar­eas and marginally re­duce the car­riage­way.

The project also aims to ‘ trans­form’ Church Street into a ‘pedes­trian friendly en­vi­ron­ment’ and up­grade all cross­ings.

But the de­ci­sion not to in­clude Bridge Street in the plans was crit­i­cised by a num­ber of coun­cil­lors.

Cllr. Mark Dearey said it was time to con­sider re­ju­ve­nat­ing Bridge Street, with one op­tion be­ing above shop liv­ing, ac­com­mo­da­tion which could be used to house stu­dents.

Di­rec­tor of Ser­vices Frank Pentony said the aim was to cre­ate a ‘ wow’ fac­tor, and they in­tended to use the money wisely to trans­form Clan­bras­sil Street and Church Street up to St. Ni­cholas Church.

He ac­cepted ‘some­thing dif­fer­ent has to be done’ with Bridge Street, but added that fund­ing avail­able for this project is not likely to stretch that far.

Cllr. Anne Camp­bell asked ‘ Why not start in Bridge Street?’ adding that if the ‘wow’ fac­tor was be­ing sought, this north­ern end of the town was a gate­way ‘ both a way in, and way out of the town.’

Cllr. Mar­i­anne But­ler agreed, say­ing that there had to be a plan for Bridge Street.

Frank Pentony said that there could a ‘vi­sion’ drawn up for Bridge Street, which if ad­di­tional fund­ing was made avail­able could be looked at.

Pro­posed works from Clan­bras­sil Street are to stop at St Ni­cholas’ Church.